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FAQs (feat. Rowlet Owl)

These FAQs have been directly sourced from the r/PESU subreddit. If you would like to add a question or make suggestions, please contact u/rowlet-owl.

==- [!badge variant="danger" text="Most Asked"] What are the pros and cons of PESU? Pros:

  1. Great placements if you are in CSE - major MNCs visit every year and the packages are great and increase every year. A good number of companies come for summer internships between 3rd and final year as well. But, placements have been poor for the current outgoing batch (2024). This is not just a PES-specific issue but because of the market. Most of the batch struggled to get placed until much later. Even now, there are probably unplaced students.
  2. Updated syllabus - the syllabi for all courses are more or less pretty up-to-date with recent advancements, but there are 2 sides to this. Most students from PES find themselves better equipped after getting placed than their colleagues those from other Bangalore colleges under VTU or other known ones like RV and BMS. Additionally, a lot of them (including me) have found a good overlap in what is followed in the industry and what is expected from students when it comes to projects and assignments, sometimes courses even going to the extent of having small-scale versions of applications that exist in the industry. The syllabus also tends to be very hands-on.
  3. Great crowd - the crowd here has always been top-notch, you will find really great people here who are competitive and will push you to do better. PES has always been known for this. There are a lot of people who will inspire you with their achievements. The seniors are great as well, there is a discord server which contains over 3000+ members from all the recent PESU batches. This is probably PESU's saving grace. Students from PES have gone on to work at major MNCs like Apple, Google, Amazon, Cisco, etc and have even pursued MS from Unis like CMU, UCLA, UCSD, Stanford, UIUC etc abroad. The crowd at PES will always encourage you to do better.
  4. Location - kind of self-explanatory, being in Bangalore has its advantages by bringing in more opportunities. Additionally, if you live near any metro line you have connectivity as well (EC campus apparently will get connected soon too).
  5. A lot of clubs and a lot of hackathons - there is a hackathon happening every other week here, plus there is a large assortment of clubs to choose from: so you get enough opportunities to take part in events. While this might seem like a nice advantage, it comes with its own share of problems.
  6. Scholarships - there are many scholarships every semester for multiple ranges of performers, giving you a lot of opportunities to get some financial returns, including top performers in the entire batch, top performers per branch etc. Although you will be eligible for only one scholarship at a time, it's nice to have these options.
  7. Alternative choices to hostel - PES RR campus is surrounded by affordable PGs and apartments. If you don't like the hostel or were late to get a room, there are a lot of backup options at arm's length.

Cons:

  1. PESU's only reputation comes from CS - the other branches are ignored and even the management does nothing to promote them. If you are in these other branches, you will miss out on a lot of the benefits PESU has.
  2. Placement stats are skewed in favour of CS - building on the first point, the advertised placement stats are always for CS. This is a misrepresentation because people from other branches do not get packages even half of what CS kids get.
  3. The updated syllabus is superficial - the syllabus although updated, is in name only. Most courses will dedicate only 10-20 slides of a PPT to the "recent developments", glancing over these topics. The expectation is on you to cover the knowledge gaps and equip yourself with the "updated skills" to survive in the industry. Most courses's syllabus is 75-80% still a little old, and is nowhere close to covering the amount to justify the syllabus being advertised as "updated". You will need to spend extensive time apart from the syllabus to make yourself qualified for a job, especially in the current competitive market.
  4. Campus is tiny - If you are a fan of large open spaces, this place believes in the opposite (at least for RR). It is like a concrete jungle with buildings all around and construction happening most of the time. EC campus on the other hand is beautiful but I am not sure what is the state of it currently. RR campus has great infrastructure.
  5. Crowded and packed - self-explanatory again, the sheer number of people makes it packed all the time, and competition for CS placements increases exponentially. Other things get affected as well such as chances for opportunities at clubs, etc.
  6. Faculty is mediocre - Biggest issue here, professors have been leaving left, right and centre. Issues such as dissatisfaction with the management, too much work etc. All the good profs have left long ago, leaving the bad ones. Profs who made the Uni what it is today, ones who headed research clubs etc have all ditched. The bad ones are leaving now too. Additionally, there are rumours of profs of axed branches (such as the old Civil branch, etc) are still being tied down to PES by the management. They are being trained in introductory courses of different branches so they are still useful (and the acute shortage of faculty). Here, you will find a single faculty member teaching a wide array of courses across different fields, even if they do not specialise in them.
  7. Research output is abysmal - A byproduct of the previous point, because the primary faculty heading these labs have left, a lot of premier research clubs have shut down. They are a mere shadow of themselves and they barely publish anything significant over the year (or actually do research for that matter). CDSAML has been a poor show for years, CCBD is dysfunctional and because of that it was merged with CDSAML, CORI was shut down this year and PCPR has basically disappeared. Most faculty in the college additionally are not interested in pursuing good research, with most of them looking forward to just publish some copy-paste/poor quality research in predatory journals and conferences just to add to their list. You will probably find ~5 profs per department who are actually interested in research. Further, there is no encouragement or support from the department to amplify efforts, thus it is actually going to get much worse. If you are someone who is looking forward to get into academia, then this will severely hurt what you can achieve here.
  8. Management is poor - Even a rock is more intelligent sometimes. They take illogical decisions that do not make sense, screw around and experiment on batches and then pin the responsibility on you. The management is a mockery of what it should be. From placements to examination stuff, a lot of it needs improvement.
  9. Stressful environment - Mentioned multiple times here, the environment here is pretty academically rigorous. You have 2 tests and 1 sem exam for each course in a semester, and between those tests multiple labs, assignments, project(s) etc. It is hectic, and you might find yourself jumping from one deliverable to the other. There is a constant expectation to do well, since your CGPA can affect a lot of things ranging from choice of professors in higher sems, placements and even your chances of a good Uni for MS. However, as most would have also said, it is not that easy to perform here and the stereotype of college kids scoring in exams after studying overnight does not work here. You need to study regularly and perform consistently well to obtain a 9+ at the end of your 4 years here. In some cases, it might feel like a school, sometimes worse. It is academically it is so rigorous that I currently feel my job functionality at my office is barely anything that I went through here.
  10. Facilities are okay at best - Infrastructure in the labs is okay at best. It is nothing world-class, it only gets the job done. You also need to jump through multiple hoops to gain permissions for things and is a cumbersome affair. Simple things such as the WiFi have multiple restrictions and you'll even ironically find unblocked porn sites but blocked educational videos on YouTube.
  11. Fests are yet to return to their pre-COVID capacity - they are around 80-90% back, but not all fests have returned yet. But this is pretty much a transient issue and should be resolved in a year or two. Fests apart from that aren't too many, however, so do not expect ground-breaking fests to happen every other month. They're great, but nothing extraordinary. This is subjective, so I am not going to comment more on this.
  12. Club and Hackathon quality are severely diluted - Having 15 clubs with quality events is way better than having 45 clubs in which most of them do not do anything. In fact, there are so many at this point that you would not recognise a few anymore. Clubs in CSE are also being run under some weird "vertical" concept, with less student management and more teacher involvement. This has been explained in detail before but the summary is that the old clubs that used to exist have mostly died because of the CSE management and been replaced by shoddy replacements (which have also died kekw). Hackathons happening every week do not make sense: the quality of projects being displayed has gone down drastically. People at these hackathons now build anything that was planned over a few days, instead of spending weeks/months like before to plan a good product (back when hackathons were at most twice a semester).
  13. Insanely high fees - this keeps increasing every year. It isn't really worth it if you are joining through management (which is 11 LPA now). KCET/PESSAT fee is a little high but is expected knowing them. Since this is again subjective, not commenting more.
  14. Other - strict attendance policy (75%, no exception), weird hostel rules

==-


==- [!badge variant="danger" text="Most Asked"] What are the differences between RR and EC campuses? If you absolutely want PES, then CSE is best here. But you shouldn't go for this route. Branch matters a lot, especially if you intend to pursue higher education. I have a couple of points regarding the campus:

  • Trust me, the campuses are the same. I graduated last year and I've seen the two campuses being almost the same. RR has more fancy buildings, EC has a spacious and open campus. RR feels very crowded, dense and packed, and the campus is essentially roads between buildings. But yes, the buildings at RR are newer and are very fancy.

  • Facilities wise, tech clubs (assuming you'll be interested in these) are currently much better at EC campus - so if you're focusing on CS/ECE, you'd want to be part of the club culture at EC. RR has probably 10x the number of clubs compared to EC, but over 80% of them are dead and almost all of them are mediocre. EC has fewer clubs overall, but the tech clubs at EC are currently unmatched. A few people will say that RR has weekly Hackathons - this is actually a bad thing. The quality of these hacks are severely diluted and most of them are poor. On the other hand, Hackathons at EC might be sporadic, but they always promise quality.

  • Research clubs at both campuses have gone to shit so it isn't a discriminator anymore. As a student you can take part in clubs at both campuses and internships at these research clubs are open to both. So again, not a discriminator.

  • The only major difference are the fests. RR fests are significantly better than EC, no denying. But as a student, you're open to take part in either. So you may not get to organise the bigshot fests, but you'll definitely get to take part in them.

  • Placements are pooled, so again not a discriminator. Placements take place together for both RR and EC campuses, EC campus kids need to come to RR campus and give interviews during placements. Companies don't know which campus a particular student is from so they can't really distinguish between candidates.

    • Now, some people online will claim that companies prefer RR campus more and that these companies "somehow" know which campus a candidate is from. These claims are false and the reason for more RR campus kids getting selected is simple statistics. RR campus has double (if not more) the number of students than EC campus. My batch (2022) had 600 CS in RR and 300 CS in EC campus. Which meant, that the probability of an RR campus student getting selected is ~67%, which is double the probability of an EC campus student getting selected at ~33%. Because of the large difference in number of candidates at both campuses, it will obviously look like favouritism and partiality to the naked eye. Each campus' student has an equal shot at placements, it just appears to be one sided because of the skewed distribution.

  • Faculty is equally unqualified at both, profs leaving both campuses and the remaining ones are mediocre. So again, can't really compare. I'd say profs at RR might be marginally better, but it's barely enough to call it a difference.

  • Finally, your campus at the end of the day will mean nothing. It will matter only to you for exactly 3 years (Final year nobody comes to college). Neither your degree, nor any official documentation from PES at the end of your 4 years will contain the campus name. When you apply for jobs, or go for higher education, your campus won't mean anything. It's a choice that will only support your education for 3 years - after that it's irrelevant.

IMO, the main comparisons that you should make are very subjective parameters such as travel costs, distance from your place, etc. Apart from that, if fests are a dealbreaker for you and you're someone who has a wide range of interests beyond tech clubs, then RR. If you're okay with not organising (because you can always take part) the largest fests, and would like to only take part in tech related clubs, then EC. But as I said - these differences will only exist for 3 years: after that the campus you graduate from is irrelevant.

If you have more questions, I'd be happy to answer. As I said, I graduated in 2022 so I'd say I know quite a bit about both campuses. Feel free to DM.

==-


==- Why do people prefer RR over EC campuses if they are the same? Short answer: lack of awareness and outdated information among students, peers, parents/relatives, YouTubers and websites.

Long answer:

PES EC (then called PESIT) was under VTU until 2018 - so until then they had different syllabus, placements, etc. In 2018 it came autonomous and since then EC has been sharing the same syllabus, profs, placements etc etc. However, until 2018, PES kept branding RR as the "main" campus and EC as the "South" or "other" campus. It was always advertised strongly that RR was the superior choice being autonomous. So until 2018, either EC was unheard of, or they were simply given the stepson treatment. Nobody, including PES, really cared about it. So all websites, blogs, YouTube videos, etc considered it inferior. So people who graduated years ago, or are in turn parents now, don't consider EC even 1% of what RR is.

However things changed in 2018, but it takes time for information to get updated when such drastic changes have taken place. For years PES kept shooting itself in the foot by saying RR > EC so when finally both campuses did become equivalent, people were stubborn to believe it (and trust me this was especially true in my batch since I joined in 2018 - the same year it became autonomous). However most websites, parents, relatives etc are still on outdated information. Most don't know that both are the same now, sharing placements and opportunities. Anyone older than 30 or so will mostly have this outdated information. And that's why students also still pick RR over EC because they hear from word of mouth, websites, videos, relatives, parents etc that RR is better. It will take a couple more years to actually change the mindset and outdated beliefs. It was much worse in 2018 and 2019, now it's actually a lot better.

As for the peer group, I disagree. Sure you might find people at RR who are better at PCM, but that doesn't correlate to people being better at engineering. In fact there is no correlation at all. Just because you solve a few more questions doesn't mean you'll succeed at college. College requires a whole new array of skills to do well and succeed. It's often those with passion and interest in their branch that actually stand out. And as I mentioned, the quality of tech clubs, events and the tech culture in ECC is currently far ahead of RR due to a variety of reasons.

==-


==- How do I switch branches/campuses at PESU? So although it is possible, branch change to CSE is extremely difficult because it depends on a lot of factors

  • Seats are limited - CSE seats only free up when people leave seats and every year there are only a handful (my batch had 3-4 changes only)
  • You need to be at the top of your batch to even be considered for branch change. Even if seats are available, CGPA plays a role in the priority order. Someone currently in mechanical with a better CGPA than someone in let's say someone in ECE will have more priority of changing branches.
  • If I remember correctly, changes from EC CSE to RR CSE are given more priority than complete branch changes. This will again put you at a disadvantage
  • You are competing with an insane number of people to shift branches since both campuses are considered (number of people across all branches and campuses with 9.5+ will be atleast 30 and available seats are handful), it does not really work out for almost everyone

If you join EEE with the intention of getting CSE in the second year I would suggest don't. I will not comment on whether you are capable of doing it, but chances are thinner than a hair.

==-


==- [!badge variant="danger" text="Most Asked"] Should I pick CS+AIML or CSE? There are multiple reasons to not choose the AIML branch at PES or any other college. I'm going to list down the reasons for AIML but this applies for most if not all specialisation branches.

  1. It's an untested branch - most of these branches have been introduced only to increase the number of CS seats because colleges know that these sell well. They're running a business and need to look out for themselves. The first AIML branch is in 3rd semester.
  2. AIML branch replaces a few core fundamental CS courses with AIML related courses. This is an extremely poor decision because a lot of the coursework being replaced is fundamental for a CS grad. Without these your CS undergraduate degree does not make sense. Additionally, a good portion of the course structure is unorganised. Advanced Data Analytics is offered as an elective but Data Analytics is not taught (it is covered for core CS), Big Data (which uses concepts from OS and CN) is taught before these courses. Computer architecture and Microprocessors are combined into a single course, making it a mishmash of 2 courses so they can fit in an extra course. Math for Machine Learning is a weird combination of Linear Algebra (which itself is a pre-requisite for MML) and the original MML course. There seems to be quite a bit of a shitshow to put this branch together.
  3. If you're looking at higher education, then you should know that admission boards abroad do not like specialisation branches because they know that they tend to skip fundamental coursework. Specialisations are baseless because one in undergrad doesn't make sense. Even for Masters degrees, you will rarely find an AIML degree, most of them are specialisations of CS. Secondly, and by far the most important aspect, admission boards always list down a set of prerequisite courses that are required to be considered for admission and your college may not have these to make room for AIML. It will definitely come to affect you later in some way or another. You can find more details in this comment.
  4. A lot of people don't know what AIML is and are picking it purely for the hype. AIML is first and foremost, a mathematical field. All the development you see out there today with ChatGPT etc are not engineering marvels, but rather breakthroughs in mathematical techniques, optimisation algorithms. AIML as a field comprises of calculus, linear algebra, statistics and probability. Almost all courses that are part of the AIML curriculum are entirely math based, in which the papers essentially require you to either derive equations or solve out problems. You will not be "coding" the next AI. If you're into math, you're going to enjoy it, but most people who enter this field with the misconception that there will be programming involved drop their interest right after a week because you're going to doing math from day 1.
  5. Building on the previous point, this field is a heavy research field. People who get into field are interested in research (me being one of them). This field is entirely for academia and those who pursue a research based MS and PhD in this field. If you look at all the jobs that are out there for AIML, you'll realise that they all require an MS degree at the very least because this field requires a lot of fundamental domain knowledge in your every day to day job. The only companies that recruit AIML engineers right out of undergrad are startups. You are 99% going to end up with a job a CS branch graduate will get, but they would have gotten the opportunity to study what they wanted to (explained in below point).
  6. You should not restrict yourself in undergrad. This is the time and place to explore the world of CS and see what's out there. Spend time looking at different things from systems to cybersec and figure out your interests. You may realise that you were never into AIML at all. If you pick AIML, you're restricted and the college decides. There is honestly so so much more than AIML. Plus, even if you are interested in ML, you can still be in core CS and pick up electives from the AIML branch.
  7. More links:
    1. Prospects of AIML after undergrad.
    2. Why core CS is better
    3. Clearing some misconceptions of CS-AIML

The only reason I would recommend picking CS-AIML is if you only care about having equivalent placements as core CS and did not get it.

==-


==- Difference in conferred degree between CS and CS-AIML? CS-AIML is a specialised degree. Which means your degree name will be CS-AIML. If you choose all electives from CS-AIML from a single specialisation group in your 3rd year, you will be eligible for a specialisation certificate. If I remember correctly, the specialisation groups were healthcare, advanced ML and something else.

Core CS (or just "CS"), is a non-specialised degree. Your degree name will be CS. If you choose all electives from CS from within a single specialisation group, you will be awarded its specialisation certificate. The groups here were cybersecurity, systems and MIDS. Note that MIDS (Machine Intelligence and Data Science) specialisation comprises AIML-related courses like Big Data, NLP, CV, Data Analytics, Graph Theory, IR and so on. Quite a few of these overlap with AIML elective options.

As for the actual difference between the degrees: CS vs CS-AIML

==-


==- How to pick between branch and college? Does the reputation or course matter more? There was a recent thread on college vs branch a few days ago. I will quote relevant bits of my comments from there. Note that the comparison was with BITS, but just replace it with NIT.

To summarise, you will have to see which is more important to you. If all you care about is getting the best package and are ok with sacrificing your interests, then BITS. Otherwise, you might be better off at PES.

Choose BITS if you want that brand name and better salary right out of undergrad, but at the risk of sacrificing your interests. Else study your interests at PES while working hard to create opportunities for yourself so you can match the pay scales by BITSians.

..you will never get to actually study a program you want to. To me at least, the course is more important than the college and pursuing your interests is very important. The branch sticks with you forever. With hard work, you can cover the distance between a T1 and T2/3 college.

Links to comments:

  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/PESU/comments/1doxx78/comment/lad10qi/
  2. https://www.reddit.com/r/PESU/comments/1dp6lpf/comment/laequ4m/

==-


==- How does PESSAT counselling work? Regarding which branch you can get with your rank, check the previous year cutoffs.

Counseling usually takes place as follows (long comment so it can be added to FAQs):

  1. Everyone shows up to counseling and registers themselves at the front desk, so PES knows which ranks have shown up on that day. This removes all the ranked kids that did not show up.
  2. As counseling starts, all ranks are called out one by one. So it starts with the first rank that showed up, and then the next, and so on.
  3. There's a big screen that also shows stats like the total number of seats in a branch and the last rank that took the seat, among other metrics.
  4. If your rank is called, you head over to the system, choose a branch from any of the ones that have seats and confirm it. This also decrements the seat count for the chosen branch. The person at the system hands you a token. If you do not like any of the branches, you can choose to not take anything and leave.
  5. You take the token to the financial counters at the side and make the deposit amount for that branch (10k + first year fees) via the DDs you've carried. They take a bit of time to activate everything and once that is done they give you a bunch of receipts, maybe ask you to sign some documents and then hand you some merch like water bottles and tshirts.
  6. Once the previous step is done, you've essentially been registered into the system and your admission is complete. You should be able to access the student portal after this and complete the remaining admission related tasks.

The second round of counseling works exactly like the first round, except for a few important things:

  1. There are usually extremely few seats in round 2. You should not skip round 1 and directly come to round 2 unless you have an extremely good rank (<200), since there are usually at most a handful in every branch. If you don't get a seat in round 1, you will 70% not get the seat in round 2.
  2. You don't need to give up your round 1 seat before round 2. If you've chosen branch X in round 1, and then you choose another branch Y in round 2, they'll simply switch your registration details and initiate a refund or ask for more money for the difference in fees when you head to the financial counters with your token.
  3. However, if you choose a branch in round 1, and don't like any options in round 2, you cannot give up the seat you have during the second round. You'll need to initiate a refund request and you will be charged atleast 10k.
  4. The second round of counseling works exactly like the first, so there is no preference given to you if you came for the first round. They will start with the first rank that shows up on that day. So if you have a rank ~500, you'll still need to wait for all the kids with a lower rank than you to finish their selection before you get to make yours.

==-


==- What are my accommodation options (pros and cons) at EC campus? https://www.reddit.com/r/PESU/comments/1d696yh/looking_for_a_roommate_in_ec_campus/

==-


==- Where can I find information about bus services at RR Campus? https://pes.edu/transportation-ring-road/

==-


==- Where can I find information about bus services at EC Campus? https://pes.edu/transportation-electronic-city-campus/

==-


==- [!badge variant="danger" text="Most Asked"] What are the do's and don't's as an incoming Freshman? I would not suggest having a "blueprint" for college because this is a new chapter in your life meant to be experienced first-hand. You will falter and make mistakes but that's ok. But here are a couple of do's and don't's:

(This comment is broken down into multiple threads)

Do's:

  • CGPA is important. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Whether your goal is placements or Masters, a high CGPA opens doors to opportunities. Your first year's CGPA forms the backbone of the CGPA you get in later years, so if you screw up in the first year, it can take a while to recover from the damage. Many shortlisting situations directly use your GPA, so the higher the better.
  • CGPA is not everything! While important, the "higher the better" policy only applies to a certain extent. Beyond that, all CGPAs are treated the same. College isn't about going to classes, studying and achieving the highest CGPA (more on this later), so don't waste your time grinding for the golden 10/10 because it might hurt you more than it can help.
  • Become industry-ready. Gone are the days when a BTech would guarantee you a job. College is about picking up valuable skills relevant to the industry and showcasing them during placements. If you do not have the necessary skills to work in a role and/or if you spend all your time grinding a high CGPA but do not have the technical proficiency to succeed in a corporate role, you will not be selected. So don't make CGPA everything and focus on developing these skills. Your goal should be to be hireable, not to get a degree.
  • Explore, explore and explore! This is more relevant to CS, but you need to explore this vast field and figure out your interests. CS is NOT programming - it is so much more. There are various fields from theoretical CS, systems, cloud, etc and so on. Explore different fields, see what they have to offer and find your niche. At the end of the day, you do want to pursue a career in what you are interested in. Once you find your interest, keep learning more it has to offer. Work on relevant projects, pick up experiences, etc until your profile is relevant/aligned towards a field. This will specialise your profile (something which most undergrads do not have) and allow you to apply for specific roles in the industry, help you become more noticeable to recruiters and also help your resume clear multiple screening rounds easily.
  • Opportunities are plenty! There are many opportunities at PES and outside, if you keep your eyes and ears open. Try your hand at everything - be it research internships or industry internships. You will not be able to find out your interests until you try your hand at everything. Keep an eye out for openings, internship announcements, etc (an easy way is to ask seniors - more on this below) so when something opens up, you are the first to apply! Keep looking for any kind of opportunity that might be relevant to your interests and keep applying, regardless of your chances. You never know what might click.
  • Maintain a professional profile. Always keep an updated resume (I used to update mine every 2 months, or if any major update is needed) and an updated LinkedIn. You will need these to apply and look for opportunities. Keeping an updated profile at all times makes it less tedious and much quicker. Building one also helps recruiters find you for relevant openings. It also helps you network and find alumni who can help you out! If you need help building a profile, reach out to seniors - they have resources to help you out. Since this is needed for internships, jobs and Masters, its important to get a head start here.
  • Make a good peer group. Having a good peer group which encourages you to do your best and vibes with you is ideal. Find your tribe and people you can get along with and it will make college life significantly better. Don't be an isolated dude on campus. Friends will keep you sane.
  • Stay connected! Its already been repeated a few times, but all communities/groups/clubs etc at PES actively use discord. There are discord servers for notes, alumni groups, MS admissions etc. Each club also actively manages their events through Discord. While its known that most students have not used discord, getting used to it early and staying connected makes life much easier later. If you need to find anything at PESU, PESU Discord will help you find it.
  • Look after your physical and mental health! PES can get very stressful, rigorous, competitive, hectic, etc. You have already heard this before. Keeping a check on your health from time to time is important. Sometimes, you might not be able to perform as well as you want to in a test, and that's ok. Learn where to draw the boundary and don't put in effort beyond what you are comfortable with. If you are satisfied with an 8.5, make sure you put in enough effort for an 8.5. Don't compare with others - only with your past self. Eat healthy, pick up a regular physical exercise and do these alongside work. Talk to people for support and share your feelings. Don't let the stress get to your head. Mental health matters, and you will need to take precautionary steps to take care of yourself at PES. Your health is more important than a GPA.

(continued in a reply)

==-


==- What is bootstrap? Bootstrap is a 5 day program where you guys are divided into 5 groups. These groups are usually named red, blue, etc.

Each group has one theme per day. The themes are mechanical, design thinking, community service etc.

During design thinking, you have a hackathon style event
During mechanical, you get a presentation about the latest advancements (boring shit) and then move on to the interesting stuff (The Aero design club, Avions; the go kart club vegavath) etc.

You also have electrical, electronics etc.

On the community service day, you usually go to a school to paint their walls or some other sort of community service like that.

It's a really fun thing that takes place during the first week of your first year. It gives a glimpse of all the departments and clubs in the university

==-


==- Where can I find more information about the campus? (PESUpedia) https://pesupedia.vercel.app/

==-


==- [!badge variant="danger" text="Most Asked"] How do I calculate my SGPA and CGPA? Is there a calculator? Let me start from the beginning:

Credits

To obtain your degree, you need to gain a certain number of credits across the 4 years of study here. This number for my batch was 160 and ideally should remain the same for you as well. If you don't get 160 by the time graduation arrives, you simply won't be given your degree.These 160 credits are then distributed among courses. You would have noticed that some courses will have 5, 4 or 2 credits.

Each course will have a certain credits required, which will be awarded once you pass the course. Which means as long as you get above an F grade, you will pass the course and get those credits at the end of that semester. You either pass and get the full number of credits in that course, or you fail and you get 0, there is no partial credit. Since there is no concept of "failing a year", you can essentially fail all your courses in a year and still move on to the next year, but you would not have earned any credits. Credits are essentially weights for a course that determine how important they are. For example, a 4 credit course will have 4 hours of classes in a week, a 2 credit course will have 2 hours of classes in a week and so on.

Mandatory and Optional coursework & Internship credits

Some courses are mandatory, meaning you will have to pass them and get those credits while some of them (electives and special topics) aren't. If you withdraw from a course you'll need to make up for credits. You cannot skip out on mandatory courses.

Credits are also obtained via internships pursued at the end of 3rd year and in 8th semester. The details of how this conversion is made aren't relevant to your question so skipping it for now. Additionally, you can also take up some extra courses beyond the official curriculum to add credits. Note that there is no concept of early graduation at PES, so even if you finish BTech a year early they'll make you stay so there is no advantage from a time or financial point or view.

Calculating your GPA

Your final marks for a course is a combination of ISA + ESA + assignments + project + etc combined in some weighted fashion. Now marks are mapped to Grades with 90+ being S, 80-89 being A, 70-79 being B and so on. Grades are then assigned numbers with S grade = 10, A = 9 and so on.

Relative Grading?

No, PESU does not follow any relative grading. There is a fixed formula used to calculate your GPAs. However, sometimes, when a batch performs poorly in a course they will shift the marks-to-grade mappings (so maybe instead of 90+ being an S they shift it to 85+). This isn't the accurate definition of relative, and additionally we do not know how they determine the magnitude of the shift so it's not a transparent process.

SGPA is a weighted average of grades in a semester where the weights are the credits for that course. So,

SGPA = sum(credits for course * grade obtained in course)/total credits in semester

CGPA is again a weighted average of your SGPA, where the weights are the credits in that semester. So,

CGPA = sum(credits in semester * SGPA in semester)/total credits across all semesters

How do I get a certain GPA/Grade?

To get an SGPA of 8, you need at least a 70 in all courses. So a little lower than that in every course will fetch you a 7.75. FYI an easy way to figure out how much you need to score is to know the average minimum marks needed for a particular GPA. Obviously, if you perform extremely well in one course, it will allow you to get slightly lower on another course.

SGPA Required Grade in all Courses Required Marks for Grade
10 S 90+
9 A 80-89
8 B 70-79

and so on...

You can also use this spreadsheet to calculate your GPA. Instructions are in the sheet. You will need to create a copy on your Google Drive from settings and then edit it.

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==- How much do I need to score to gain a certain grade? To get an SGPA of 8, you need at least a 70 in all courses. So a little lower than that in every course will fetch you a 7.75.

FYI an easy way to figure out how much you need to score is to know the average minimum marks needed for a particular GPA. Obviously, if you perform extremely well in one course, it will allow you to get slightly lower on another course.

SGPA Required Grade in all Courses Required Marks for Grade
10 S 90+
9 A 80-89
8 B 70-79

and so on...

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==- What is a backlog? I'll just explain from the beginning to make things clear for everyone.

If you fail (or withdraw) a course, you will need to pass it to get your degree. If you do not clear it, you won't be given your degree, your transcript will always show that you have a pending backlog, and you will not be allowed to sit for placements. Now, you can clear backlogs during two specific moments in the year:

  1. Summer backlog exam (Recommended): If you choose to do this, then in the next summer break between the even and the odd semesters, you'll have to give the backlog exam again.
  2. Normal course exam: If you choose to do this, then you'll have to take up the exam for this the next time the course is again held. In most cases this is the next year with the next batch (so if you fail a course in 3rd semester, you'll have to take the course again the next 3rd semester kids take it, so you'll be in 5th semester).

Once you pass via any of the methods, you've passed the course. One thing to note is, regardless of the option you choose, if you need to give a backlog you will only be evaluated on the exam: all 100 marks for the course will be taken from your ESA paper, you will not have any ISA, assignment or project components. Additionally, you can take backlog exams as many times as you need to pass a course, but do remember that each backlog exam costs money. The grade for the exam will be updated on your transcript.

Also there is a maximum grade that can be achieved in a backlog exam. I think it was a B grade for us. Best to get this verified.

PS - Backlog exams apparently tend to be easier in the summer. No concrete proof to support this though - just PESU lore

PPS - Funnily, I've heard of some people who know they are going to screw up their ESA withdraw from their exam and instead choose to give a backlog exam in the summer to pass it. This has 2 advantages: you haven't failed the course so it doesn't count as a "failed", and it doesn't consider your ISAs or other deliverables, so if you've screwed up in those it doesn't affect your overall score anymore. Now whether people actually went ahead with this, I'm not sure. Do this at your own peril - I don't hold any responsibility for exploiting this loophole.

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==- How many holidays do we get here? Since the academic session has been kind of screwed up because of COVID related delays the past 3 years, the usual session calendars aren't followed for first years.

Usually, the odd semester lasts from 2nd week of August to last week December, followed by roughly a 1.5-2 weeks break. Then again from January till May last week for even semester, followed by roughly a 2.5 month break until mid August again.

If the usual session calendars are followed you get roughly 2.5 months in the summer and about 10-14 days in December, apart from the other ones thrown around here and there during the year. If you're in first year, it's possible after this year ends you'll finally get a proper academic session as it used to be.

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==- What is the Capstone Project? Capstone Project is essentially your final year college project that spans over 6th, 7th and 8th semester. Most projects are research based ones where you pursue some novelty in a field, but there are also a few non research based projects. Capstone totally adds up to 10 credits so it greatly affects your CGPA and cannot be taken lightly and requires genuine work from your end to actually do well in.

  1. 6-8th semesters
  2. Not really, but ideally by the time you reach 6th semester, most people develop interest in a field and people usually end up pursuing a project in this field (example, Computer Vision) and also find other batchmates interested in the same field. So while it isn't required as such, people do tend to find teammates with common interests and some background experience with a field to make things easier
  3. Usually you are free to pick your own and the professor will make suggestions, but in case you have no clue on what to do, the professor will always have a few backup project ideas of their own
  4. Internship is a completely independent component on its own. You can pursue an internship during the summer between 6th and 7th sem, or throughout 8th sem. There are various guidelines and policies which determine how many credits you'll get, not going into the details here since that's not relevant right now
  5. No, because in >98% cases, your work during your internship cannot be shared publicly beyond your organisation. Besides as mentioned earlier they are separate components and college will end up making you work on a complete project separately.

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==- Where can I find the syllabus for a certain branch? https://discord.gg/KUSydtjaAh

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==- Where can I find updated study materials for a course? http://better-pes.vercel.app

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==- How do I become a Teaching Assistant? I can answer for CS, but I think the process will be nearly the same for all branches.

  1. Firstly, you can only be TA for a course that you've taken up in the past. You obviously can't TA for a course you are currently taking up or you will take up in a later semester.
  2. You can reach out to the faculty you want to work with for the course, tell them why you want to be the TA, what you learned from the course etc etc. It's more like a personal statement about how you can contribute as TA and why you should be given that role. The teacher you reach out to might also ask for other details like your CGPA, the project you did in that course and so on.
  3. Side note - I have also had profs reach out to me and request joining them as a TA. This is very rare though and requires you to have a good relationship with the prof either by working with them in research or doing well in their course. I did both and thus was requested.
  4. Alternatively, the CS department in the past has also sent out a Google Form to the entire batch to collect the same info as above from interested students. As far as I know they send it out only at the beginning of your 7th semester (although TAs can also be from earlier semesters). IMO it's better and honestly far more effective to directly approach the teacher you want to work with.
  5. Based on the details you give the prof (or the responses from the Google form), they'll evaluate their options and reach out to the students they think are suitable.

Good luck!

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==- Which laptop should I buy for college? So I usually don't recommend buying one if you're still in the first year, since you can generally do with whatever you already have since the requirements aren't extensive - you will not be doing anything beyond writing a couple of lines of code and opening PPT/PDFs. Plus, waiting a little will also give you time to figure out your interests and help you decide on the kind of laptop you need to pursue your interests.

Having said that, if you're in CS and looking for a generic purpose laptop with an all-rounded use case, I usually suggest the following specs. Note that if you are looking for a specialised use case like video-editing, gaming, designing, etc - you will have different requirements. If you are looking to get through 4 years of college with a good balance between work and play, usually these are enough:

  • Windows laptop so you can dual boot Linux - people have issues running some packages with MacOS. These issues so have workarounds but they're tedious and a hassle. A dual-booted Windows runs everything out of the box. Recently, more people have started opting for MacOS since support has improved, but its still not as smooth sailing as Windows. Besides, a few courses will require Linux anyway, so it helps to start with one.
  • Don't compromise on these - SSD, 16 GB RAM, latest gen processor, lightweight laptop (you will need to carry this to college), solid battery backup. Theoretically, even RAM can be upgraded but ideally, you'd want at least 16 GB. If not, make sure the model supports an upgrade.
    • DO NOT get a gaming laptop. Although these tend to have all these specs, they compromise a lot on battery backup and portability. Get a gaming laptop ONLY IF you want to game on that machine. Except for gaming, that dedicated GPU is pretty useless. Even if you are in AIML, you will not really end up using a local GPU since free cloud services like Colab/Kaggle offer more than double the GPU power at literally zero cost. That GPU is only necessary if you want to game.
  • Things that will depend on your preferences - display size, brand, and storage capacity. Choose whichever you like.
  • Optional - an entry-level Nvidia GPU. You don't need a powerhouse, an entry-level one will do. Although, you can get by without one as well. Don't prioritise this, although if you can get one within your budget, make sure it's an Nvidia only. This will let you run extremely small ML workloads locally if you wish to (you will probably never encounter this situation) so having any GPU with with ~2GB of memory is good enough.
  • You can find an in-depth engineering laptop shopping guide here.

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==- Withdraw vs Dropping of courses? https://www.reddit.com/r/PESU/s/A4EHGa12Jc

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==- How do I prepare for my first year in CS? If you don't have any programming background, the CS50 is a great course to introduce you to the basics. However, IMO you don't actually need such an intro because all CS courses in first year start from absolute basics, assuming you have 0 background in CS. So unless you're a fan of learning different languages (which isn't helpful if you don't know what a language is for), it won't help you too much. Most people I know recommend it only to pick up basic Python/C skills. So the course in itself will be useful for at most first year. Beyond that it kind of loses its purpose.

On the other hand if you want a course whose topics you'll end up using not only during your 4 years but also mandatorily in the industry, you should pick up the MIT Missing Semester. From its name, it's meant to cover tools and technologies that aren't part of a standard CS curriculum but rather are meant to be used alongside it - shell scripting, using the terminal, version control, etc. These are tools you'll have to pick up yourself as you navigate college but you will end up using every single day at work in the industry, hence the earlier you get proficient with them, the better. It's a fantastic and also pretty small course. A lot of people in the industry also recommend it to freshers who join because of how useful it is.

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==- How can I explore different fields in CS? CS isn't about learning programming languages, it is about solving problems. You should explore different domains, see what they offer, and find the one that interests you. This will help you identify the field you want to get into and what career you want to pursue.

Check out https://roadmap.sh/ - it contains good roadmaps to follow for different fields. The only way to determine your interest is to eliminate those you aren't interested in. Try the "hello world" equivalent of each field until you can narrow down your interests to 1-2 fields. Once you do that, you can specialise in that by learning more about it. If you face a situation where you are unsure about a field, go beyond the "hello world" equivalent and try the "factorial" equivalent.

Also, I always recommend the MIT Missing Semester Course to incoming CS (and anyone trying to land an IT job). Given its name, it's meant to cover various tools/skills that a CS engineer should have. These topics are not covered in any course (like version control, shell scripting, etc) but are a standard requirement when you join the industry and are needed daily at work.

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==- What do my 4 years in CSE look like? I'd say depends on your branch, but I can answer for CSE

  • 1st year is usually a great way to lay the foundation of a good GPA. The subjects are mostly easy and people tend to do well. There are lesser course deliverables as well as other responsibilities/activities/factors do not exist at this point. Whatever you get as your CGPA at this stage will roughly be the benchmark around with your GPAs will fluctuate in the future.
  • 2nd year is when things slowly ramp up. Courses get a little harder, the number of course deliverables can almost double, but overall I would say the difficulty does not exponentially increase. A lot more time however is taken away by the newly added deliverables per course, so lesser free time for yourself. This is the last shot you have at making drastic improvements to your CGPA, since you are halfway through your degree and there are lesser chances of improving in your control
  • 3rd year is by far the worst year for almost everyone. Way too many course deliverables, courses are much, much harder compared to the last 2 years. Additionally, you also have other things on your plate such as the Capstone project (which is worth a good portion of your credits), regular placement tests and prep (unless you prep, you really cannot expect yourself to get an internship over the summer with just college syllabus), and any other work for your future higher education which will start this year (Masters applications, getting LoRs, research into Unis etc). Overall, a lot of people do not improve their GPA here (and a lot of them get way lesser than their previous years). This year is all about maintaining your CGPA as much as possible. If you ask anyone in CSE, this is by far the most stressful, painful, energy draining year in your degree.
  • 4th year is relaxed, but depends a lot on how you handle things. You barely have courses, and they end before 8th semester. You have capstone project to work on and regular placement tests. If you don't get placed quickly, the stress and tension tends to build for obvious reasons and can ruin your mental health. If you are planning higher education, the stress related to that also will be at its peak. However the issue is that you cannot expect significant improvements to your GPA anymore at this stage. The courses barely affect your GPA, since their credits are just 2 each. Capstone project can be a hit or a miss, depending on the effort you put in and the panels you get (but most people tend to do well). Your internship grade is largely out of your control since your manager's feedback is used to assign you a grade, so you can't say for sure that you are going to do well. Mostly people increase their GPA by 0.1-0.3, not more in this year.

If you are looking at an 8 at the end of first year, you will probably end up between a 7.6-8.6 at the end of all years based on usual trends. It will require something astronomically different levels of effort and consistency to push that 8.5 to a 9+ if that is what you are aiming at at the end of your degree

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==- How do I prepare for CS placements? Firstly, you're barely in 2nd sem - now's not the time to be worrying about placements. Time doesn't fly that quickly either.

Secondly, this is a long answer, but the summary is that it is different for different people. It's nice to read that you've started web dev and Android, but you shouldn't be doing these with the intention of getting placed. If you're doing that then you're really not going to make much progress. Instead, you should find the field(s) that interest you the most and dive deeper into those. This finding takes a lot of time - some people know it before they enter college (like me), while some take all the way up till 7th semester. There is no shame in either and you should know that it takes a lot of experimentation and getting your hands dirty to figure out ones interests.

Additionally, these fields won't help you directly get placed. CS placements use competitive programming and problem solving as a filter test. Hundreds give the placement test which comprises of a couple of these problem solving questions (you can find such ones on platforms like Leetcode, Codechef etc) and each company shortlists about 30 at most. Sometimes placement tests also test core CS theoretical concepts of networks, OS, DBMS. Rarely you'll find anything beyond this. Once you make it to the interview round, it's a different ball game.

So companies usually don't expect graduates to be specialised in a particular field, but they do know that some of them will be. By default, they will test you on generic DSA and problem solving, and you'll later get assigned to any random team. However, if your resume and past experiences show alignment towards a field (for example, Android dev), then your interview may go along this direction provided they are looking for such roles. But in most cases if they don't see any direction in your profile, you'll get assigned to whichever team they think you'll fit best into. In >90% cases, you will be tested on different levels of DSA alone, your actual development skills won't play too much of a part unless you get lucky, or your skills stand out among the rest. I was the most extreme exception for my batch, I didn't get interviewed on any kind of DSA and problem solving, but that's because my profile was heavily built for machine learning and analytics (and that's what I do on a daily basis at work too) and had the most research publications in my batch before I graduated as well, so these worked in my favour.

I'd be happy to talk more about this over DM, but IMO this isn't the time to be discussing these, you have a lot of time to start preparing. For now, stick to maintaining a good CGPA (8.5+), figure out your interests and work towards it and at the same time enjoy your college life. The time for worrying about placements will come later but this time to work on yourself won't come again.

If you would like more information about how CS placements work, you can read this other answer

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==- CGPA vs skills, which is more important for placements? Short answer: everything.

Long answer:

You need a good CGPA to not only be eligible to sit for placements but also to get shortlisted for companies. Companies use various parameters to shortlist applicants - the number of problems solved and CGPA being the two main ones. Depending on the company, they might shortlist candidates with 8+, 8.5+ or even 9+. Regardless, once you get shortlisted, CGPA takes the back seat.

During the N interview rounds, it depends entirely on your skills (including DSA) and resume. They might ask you tougher DSA questions and ask for pseudo code, or they might ask you how a certain application might use a certain data structure. Or they might ask you about some framework/tool/CS concept they work with and ask you how it works. They might also ask you to explain your projects and then question you on the project. If the job role is well defined, they will ask you questions directly related to that role and test the skills needed to succeed in that role.

So basically it's not just a good CGPA that's needed but rather a good combination of everything. If you have only a good CGPA, you will either not clear the test or struggle during interviews because you are nothing beyond those digits. On the other hand if you have a top notch set of skills, excellent projects and experiences but have an average CGPA, you will find it difficult to get shortlisted (this happened to me). So the best solution is to ensure you have atleast an 8.5+ because that makes you eligible for almost all companies and also have all the skills needed to ace interviews.

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==- How is ECE at PESU? https://www.reddit.com/r/PESU/comments/1cyvucb/the_pros_and_cons_of_pes_university_of_ece_at_rr/

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==- Does doing a Minors in CSE help if I want an IT job? Talking from a CSE grad standpoint here.

So taking up a CS minor actually helps, since CS placement tests (and interviews) often require and test you on basic knowlege of concepts taught through the CSE syllabus namely OS, CN, DBMS which are (as far as I know) covered in the minor syllabus as well. If you do the minor courses and actually pay attention and learn them, you don't really need to go out of your way to do them from scratch on your own (something which a lot of ECE kids struggle to do right before placements). So yes, from the placement test and interview angle it does help quite a bit since it helps you almost meet the theoretical knowledge requirement.

However, another thing I'd also like to point out that although you might have done a Minor in CS, a lot of companies will still be biased and pick CS grads only, since at the end of the day you are majoring in ECE. Companies will tend to pick the CSE grad over the ECE grad although both might clear the same placement test, because they feel the CSE grad might have the required skills/can learn those skills a lot faster.

Point being, doing a Minor is advisable and will help boost your chances in CS placements, but don't take it as a guarantee or as a scenario where you are equivalent to the CS kids because it'll unfortunately still not put you in the same boat as them from the company's point of view.

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==- Will a Minor in CS make up for my ECE Major? Short answer: Yes you can but don't have too much hope.

Long answer:

Most companies allow CS and ECE kids to sit for their tests. A few allow EEE as well. Very rarely you'll find the other branches included too. But usually these other branches tend to face difficulties when it comes to tests, because our placement tests contain a good amount of CS theory namely OS, CN, DBMS and sometimes even beyond these courses. These courses are mandatory courses part of the syllabus, so if you're from another branch you'll need to cover up somehow. Some people take up a CS Minor and that does seem to help, but it won't completely put you on par with the CSE kids.

I graduated this year (2022 batch) and from my experience I noticed it was mostly CSE kids getting CS based placements. Very rarely a kid or two from ECE would show up in the list. Most of them would fail to make it past the coding test itself. And even if they did qualify for the interviews, they would face difficulties there. CS interviews are heavily focused on DSA concepts along with CS theory. Very rarely do companies interview based on skills you have or the job requirement (since they all come looking for SWE roles and assign you to teams later) and to the best of my knowledge, DSA isn't covered as part of syllabus of other branches. And finally even if you've done it all, companies do tend to show bias towards CS grads because there is a higher chance these kids already know or will be able to pick up tools/frameworks/languages used in the industry/job or have atleast some degree of familiarity with them.

I'd say the best shot you've got through college is to take up a Minors. It won't completely make you prepared but it's better than nothing

Edit: I wrote this answer sometime back. Attaching for more reference.

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==- How restricted are CSE placements? My answer is based on the observations I made during my batch's placements (2022 outgoing batch).

CS companies let CS, ECE and very rarely EEE kids also sit for their placements, but unless you're in CSE, there are very few chances of you clearing the test (without prep that is). Even if you do have prep, the number of CSE kids getting shortlisted for interviews is much higher. When they'd list out all the students who would get selected for the interview rounds, there would be only atmost a handful of other branch students compared to CS, so in all likelihood you won't clear the test itself. If you do manage to clear the test, you need to sit for interviews which are heavily based on CSE theory and practical concepts, which you wouldn't have covered. Even if you try to make efforts on your own, it is highly implausible to cover everything to the level that you can answer those questions and gain that level of understanding you need to clear the rounds. Even if you do clear all the interviews, companies still can show a little bias and select a CS kid with the same profile as yours based on the assumption that they might have the skills the job needs or they can pick it up faster (a bad assumption, but it does exist).

We'd see maybe one or two students a most here and there getting selected for CS placements. In over 90% cases they're all CS kids. If you get selected by a company, you'll earn the same package as the CS kids. But it's going to be a miraculous task to study on the side and get selected. It's even more competitive trying to find a job off campus.

If you're giving the entrance tests you are strictly looking for CS placements, you have a higher chance of being in CSE and getting a CS job at PES than in other branches. And if you're interested in CS in general, choose the branch over the college (my personal opinion, people can have theirs).

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